Wednesday, November 23, 2011

Reading an interview in today's issue of Ny Teknik, with Håkan Juholt, the leader of the social democrats in Sweden. On the question on how to make Sweden a leading technology country, Håkan says:

"We need close cooperation between the state and companies. Where would Ericsson have been without Televerket?" (Televerket = the old telephone monopoly in Sweden.)

Oh, golly.

I wonder if it's just good old companies like Ericsson that should work closely with the state. What about Spotify? And Tripbirds, maybe we can work closely with the state, too. That would be great for innovation. right?

It's worth noting that Ericsson has the same stock price today as it did in november 1995. Not counting inflation. During the same period the stock index has gone up more than 300%.

I don't mean to bash Ericsson. But maybe closer ties between Ericsson and the state isn't the way forward if we want to be an innovative country in the years to come.

In Håkan's defense he says he'd like to shut down a state-owned venture capital fund, with three billion sek in capital, that the center-right ruling coalition set up in 2009 to invest money in the automotive industry. The reason? "It was a fiasco, and it hasn't worked". Sounds reasonable. Håkan's solution? A new state fund investing in other industries. Hmm...

As an alternative solution to politicians of all colors: Stay out of the market, and let entrepreneurs take care of innovation. But do all you can to make the market machinery work. Like fixing this. Get it?

Wednesday, November 2, 2011

24 Hour Business Camp is over for this time. If you missed the pitch presentations you can see them here. Each team got one minute to present their project.

Some cool projects include:

Silar.se. Clean and ambient real time data visualization. As the "jury's choice" these guys got 25.000 sek as a surprise contribution. I hope they use them all to further develop the product, and that ASAP. We really need a cool dashboard at Tripbirds. We're ready to pay for it too.

Startupjobb.se. A way for people to find work at the coolest startups in Sweden.

Addjective.com. Describe your friends on Facebook with a one (?) word. Looking forward to seeing it in action.

Riksdagsrösten.se See how swedish politicians vote on different issues. And vote yourself.

Squashtoppen.se A way for squash clubs to keep track of their club ranking. Simple, but probably with large potential. The system can also easily be applied to tennis, chess, bowling etc. Built on Bootstrap - nice!

Snolooken.se Gives fashion bloggers an picture widget that let's visitors buy clothes similar to them in the picture.

Socialdekal.se Business owners in the real world get a big sticker that visitors use to like their business (or check in, please!) on Facebook. Using both QR-codes, and NFC. Huge potential market. Connects the real world with the internet. Developed by Popdevelop.

There are many more great projects, so please check out the complete list. Many tired web developers in Sweden yesterday. Good work everybody!